Britax kidfix: worth the £???

[beetlemum]

Hi i am looking at getting one of these for my 4 yr old, I'm quite an inexperienced driver and prefer isofix as he had an isofix stage 2 seat, atm he is in a graco but it looks death trap like to me. any thoughts?

Ruby - do you have all 3 on the back seat? (And if so which car do you have?)

Thanks.

Check out www.rearfacing.co.uk. Evidence suggests that rearfacing seats are vastly more safe than forward facing seats, but UK retailers and manufacturers do not widely publicise this to British parents. However, in Scandinavian countries, rearfacing car seats are the norm to the age of 4. The Britax Evolva is available in a rearfacing configuration in the UK, as the Nordic Multi Tech (available for £250 here www.incarsafetycentre.co.uk/shop/special_br_10.html, and there are other seats available from some forward-thinking car seat shops here.

The Which? report chose not to include RF seats in their coverage, as they take into account the "complexity" of use - and argued that RF seats are too tricky for UK parents to install safely. (Given that an estimated 70% of FF carseats are incorrectly installed in the UK anyway, they might have a point - but surely the answer is in educating people on how to fit seats correctly, rather than selling them seats which perform less effectively in a collision?)

Anyway, if you're interested in the safest car seats about, you will do well to have a look at the rearfacing site. Good luck.

Smellen, my son is 4.5 so theres no way he'd fit in a rear facing seat

You might be surprised - I know his legs are long, but he could sit in a "buddha" position. Better a broken leg than a broken neck (god forbid). Anyway, it's usually done according to weight, so might still be worth your while investigating RF seats, especially if you are likely to need a carseat for a littler one in the future ;)

The Essex Road Safety ladies are genuinely impartial and give advice on all types of car seat (FF and RF), so worth calling them for advice anyway. They are compiling a database of which seats are good for which cars and so on, so very useful knowledge. Good luck with your search.

Who are the Essex road safety ladies and how do I contact them?

From the "rearfacing" site:
Essex County Council has six Road Safety Officers, who are working to inform parent about safety issues relating to car seats. As part of that, they run a "try before you buy" service for children's car seats.

...The centre is open Tuesdays 12.30?15.00 and Fridays 10.30?15.00 and is situated at Lubards Farm, Hullbridge Road, Rayleigh, Essex, SS6 9QG. You can reach the centre on 01268 297593 (leave a message on the answer machine if there isn't anyone available to take your call).

Please note that you don't have to be from Essex to use this service, and that it is free.

smellen thanks so much - really appreciated.